I am a new nurse and I work as an LPN in a LTC facility. A few days ago, we had a readmit. With any admit or readmit, we have to do an admission assessment (I'm sure this is all common knowledge for the most part, just setting up the story). The admission assessment is a form separate from the nurse's admission note, although both contain much of the same information. But the admission form has a number of things that don't go in the NN's like elopement risk assessment, fall precaution assessment, etc.
ANYway, I did the admission assessment on my pt along with a few other documents (pain assessment form r/t pressure ulcer and another pain assessment form later in the evening r/t new pain). I turned these assessment forms in to the DoN per protocol.
At some point between then and today, the forms were lost. Bear in mind that A) these are all legal documents, and B) admission assessment forms must be completed within 16 hours of admission per state regulation.
So, today, the DoN and corporate QA nurse ask me to rewrite the lost admission assessment and pain assessment. The DoN admitted at this time that she knew that I already did them, because she had them in her possession at some point, but that they were lost and couldn't be found anywhere (they searched through all the charts).
At that time, I said that I would rewrite the documents later in my shift. It didn't occur to me until several hours later that I would be a complete freaking moron to rewrite legal documents and date them with a date other than today's date.
By the time I figured that out, the DoN and QA nurse were gone, so I couldn't discuss the issue with them.
Am I wrong in thinking that this would be a huge violation and that I am basically hanging myself if I rewrite these documents? All I can think is that if the state were to audit the facility and were to find the original misplaced documents, that would pretty much buy me a one-way ticket to a State Board of Nursing's review of my license.
The chances of the state auditing the facility and finding the misplaced documents are very slim, but I still feel that I am jeopardizing my license by doing this. Not to mention that it's just plain unethical to even ask me to do that, and that it's not my responsibility to come up with these lost documents when the DoN admitted to having them in her possession.
On the other hand, if I don't rewrite the documents, I could be fired. TN is an at-will employment state, so they could fire me without giving a reason. But, I think that it would be better to have to go out looking for another job than to not be able to work at all due to not having a license.
I don't really know what to do here. Well, I do know what to do, but I'm concerned about my financial stability. I worked too hard for my license to have it snatched away due my covering up for someone else's carelessness.
Anyone else have thoughts on this? Am I overreacting by thinking that it's wrong for them to even ask me to do this?
